Category: Culture

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I did not take the break I thought about, primarily because I was still involved with some communications. I also found myself somewhat obsessed with last week’s happenings.

In the end, what saddened me the most about last week wasn’t about people so much as it was about honesty. Or perhaps I should say, how honesty lost out to this never ending desperate rush to get attention.

I have been engaged in a good discussion on the issues at Blogher, in the post that Ronnie Bennett wrote. I can’t tell you how much I have come to admire Ronnie from this writing. Maybe not enough to make up for the respect I’ve lost for others, but it has helped.

I also agree with Ronnie, in her reverence for the freedom of speech.

Tim O’Reilly has come out with this code of conduct, which doesn’t interest me overmuch. He lists several so-called rules to accompany this new ‘approved’ way of weblogging.

One is the elimination of anonymous comments. Some of the more interesting comments I’ve had in my space have been by ‘anonymous’ people, and I have no intention of changing the way comments work in my place. True, I don’t get the number of comments that Kathy Sierra and Robert Scoble get; if these people want to turn anonymous comments off, why do they need our permission? They’re adults. Turn anonymous comments off, go for it. We don’t care.

Another rule is deleting comments. I’m not sure where the idea that one can’t delete obnoxious comments sprang from. If it came from a post at Tara Hunt’s, well Tara has to accept responsibility for some of this by her setting a somewhat defensive and quarrelsome tone in her responses to people, and then pulling out the ‘abuse’ charge when they respond in kind.

A lot of people don’t deal with strong debate, or with criticism. I feel any problems they have will eventually be self-healing, as people come to realize that engaging in dialog in the posts of these people is a waste of time. If they turn away the more interesting people because they won’t always respond in whatever fashion is deemed ‘civil’, those people are welcome here.

Taking a conversation offline is a good one, but risky. I’ve seen this blow up when people respond to seeming innocuous comments with a great deal of animosity. The reason is because a lot of the communication happened behind the scenes and people weren’t privy. To outward appearances, it looks like someone has blown up for no reason. So I would say do so…but do so warily, and with caution. ‘Ware, there be dragons here.

Taking responsibility for what you write in my comments? Only if you let me take credit for what you write. I have been lucky to have excellent commentary in my posts, with very thoughtful and reasoned arguments. If I’m to take responsibility for the negative, I want credit for the good stuff.

Otherwise, I’m going to pretend we’re all adults here. Do I delete comments? I have from time to time. I find, though, that my old editing capability (which I am adding back, but improved) usually eliminated most of this — the people would edit themselves after they cooled down. As for random nastiness, if the comment is on-topic, not meant to injure another’s ability to communicate, and not illegal, it typically stays.

About the rule for ignoring trolls, I agree, and think it’s the most effective ‘weapon’ we have. But this one could have an unanticipated side effect. A lot of people consider me a troll because I’m critical, and can be persistent in my criticism. My way of looking at this rule is that it works both ways: if you consider me a troll, cool; but don’t expect me to link you, comment about you, or mention you by name in the future. I wonder how long some of the webloggers who ‘need’ the attention will maintain such a code if this is the result?

The labeling system that Tim mentions is as ill-thought out as people wanting to put ‘Be Civil’ or ‘Do not be Mean’ in one’s sidebar. I can’t think of anything more likely to attract the behavior they want to avoid than this. I surely don’t know what the people were thinking of when they came up with these.

None of this is new, though. Most of these, other than the labels and badges, have been brought up in the past any time something like this happens. None of these rules inspired me to post. What did, is the following:

It now seems fairly certain that that the images posted on meankids and unclebobism were not intended as actual threats — but as long as the perpetrator remains anonymous, there is no way to be sure. In particular, as the person who is now seen as the most likely perpetrator insists, after the fact, that his computer must have been hacked, Kathy is left with the fear that there is indeed an unknown stalker at large.

There are a massive number of assumptions in this paragraph, all of which demonstrate a disconnect with the rest of Tim’s writing. There is an assumption of intent; of guilt; of convicting without proof; of deciding to toss the blame for all of this on to the person conveniently absent; of innuendo, gossip, and mean spirited finger pointing. How can one person talk such noble sentiment and then completely toss it all aside with one paragraph?

Couple that with this:

Bringing this back to the level of principle: if you know someone who has anonymously published comments that could be construed as a threat, you owe it to them, to their victim, and to yourself, not to remain silent. If there is no actual threat, you need to convince the perpetrator to apologize; if there is, you need to cooperate with the police to avert that threat.

To the Chinese, freedom is a threat. To the right wingers, criticism of the Catholic Church was a threat. To some folks in Missouri, the fact that I continually bring up issues related to Johnson’s shut-ins is a threat. Exactly how do we define a level of ‘threat’ in this new Gestapo brave new world? Is it in the eye of the beholder? For instance, Kathy feels afraid of these images, and therefore it is our duty to hunt down this perpetrator and bring him or her to justice?

This paragraph is a demonstration of a brighter future? A better world? A better world…wasn’t that mentioned in the movie, Serenity?

So I’ll respond in the only way I–and others dragged into this, since this has been tried in the court of public opinion–can respond: Kathy has said she has contacted the police on these matters. Then I believe we–asked to be jury, judge, and executioner–have a right to demand from her exactly what the response of the police was. I believe this is a very fair question to ask, considering the amount of innuendo and this seeming willingness of all participants to convict whomever is most expedient.

Or we can accept that mistakes were made in the past, much has been said, misunderstandings have occurred, poor judgment was practiced, and that all such can happen in this open environment. Oh, and that it’s time to move on.

I await response on this one. And since we’re practicing a new civility, I await response on this one, please.

Until then, this ‘code of conduct’ is really, to me, not worth the paper it’s printed on.

Earlier

Kathy Sierra just just posted a note about getting death threats and canceling out of ETech. In the post, she specifically mentioned Jeneane Sessum, Alan Herrel, Frank Paytner, and Chris Locke. I know everyone involved–I’ve known Jeneane, Frank, Chris, and Alan for close to six years, and Kathy for a good couple of years.

I’ve not seen the Meankids blog or the other one mentioned, but I also don’t follow most of the emails and stuff associated with the old Cluetrain group. Not because I think the old gang is ‘bad’; just not somewhere I’m at now. I don’t talk much with Jeneane or Chris, but I do chat with Frank and Alan. Any time I’m down, Alan always sends me links to squid stuff or other things I’d like. Alan has also been one of the strongest proponents for increasing the number of women at conferences and calling out on sexist behavior. What I’m hearing and what I know, conflict.

I know these folks and I’m concerned about the implications of what Kathy’s post can mean to each of them. Would they do a death threat? No. Not a bit of it. Absolutely, completely, not possible. The one email that Kathy mentions in her post was from Spain from the IP address given, and is completely unassociated with the people she’s named, or the weblogs she specified. But did the noose post constitute a death threat? You know, the sites are down (ed. Did find a cached version of post) and without having an idea of context, we don’t exactly know what the implications are. At a minimum, it was abysmally stupid. Was it criminal? As my roommate said, if you had done that with Bush, the Secret Service would probably visit.

Kathy has said she’s contacted the police. She didn’t say if it was local or federal.

I have been critical of Kathy in the past, and most likely will be again. We’re two very different people. Same as I have been and will be critical of others that Kathy mentions, such as Tara Hunt and Hugh MacLeod. I might even use satire in my criticism, though I tend to be pretty direct when it comes to people.

At the same time, Kathy and I have made peace from past angers; she even reviewed the first chapter of my last book–had good advice, too. I think she knows that most of my criticism has been based on acts, not the person as a whole. I hope that’s the type of criticism I do, though I know I fail sometimes.

The only time I’ll use any biting humor or sarcasm is when I know the person can take it and dish it back. Kathy doesn’t deal well with this type of humor–yes, mean, nasty, snarky humor–but at the same time, she’s not very good at ignoring it, either. She and her partner Bert do respond in comments, and sometimes this can exacerbate an already volatile situation, and can increase the level of meanness. Does that excuse the meanness and hate? No, but it may provide some balancing context. Or it may not–but we don’t have other people’s stories, and we can’t know the ‘truth’, whatever that is, until we have all the facts. Continuing to focus their shots at Kathy was foolish, thoughtless, and served no useful purpose.

Do I think the photoshopping and the meankids.org is a ‘cool’ thing? No. Such encourages aggression and leads people to do and say things they wouldn’t normally do and say. But I’m not overfond of hiding ‘meanness’ in sweet words and ‘clever’ drawings, either. The cruder might be more obvious, but the subtle is, by far, the more harmful.

Do I think Kathy’s life is in danger? From what she wrote? No. But it’s not up to me to decide, I’m not her and I deal with things differently than she does. Doesn’t mean I’m better or she’s better–just different. As for fully interpreting this as a criminal act, it’s up to the police since she’s called them. But by calling the police, and writing her post, she’s raised some very high stakes, which could end up causing a great deal of harm to some folks. She’s created a posse, and from what I can see, not a lot of people have asked for context. Or care.

The email that Kathy received is separate from the posts. It was unfortunate that she combined these into a post. I’m concerned now that a lot of people are going to react and some folks, including Kathy, are going to get hurt–and no, I don’t mean physically.

Frankly, calmer heads are needed when responding to this event. Webloggers are not very good at maintaining perspective. I know, I’ve been one for too long.

As for the comments derogatory to women, they do disappoint me, profoundly–more so if they’re from people I have called friend. Frankly, this whole incident has taken the heart out of me.

For all the people calling for the police and demanding jail time, I would counsel calm, because we don’t know the full story. The web sites have been taken down, we don’t know the posts that have gone before or the ones after. I’m not disparaging Kathy’s emotions or reactions, but these are serious matters, and I think we need to be very careful in how we respond.

update